[phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead [phpBB Debug] PHP Notice: in file /includes/bbcode.php on line 483: preg_replace(): The /e modifier is no longer supported, use preg_replace_callback instead ¤ milky moon ¤ • View topic - Essay on J-New
I'm doing a module at university this year called , which is super fascinating, and I was thinking I might take advantage to ask my (very cool) tutor if I can write my assessed essay on Joanna and her writing. I think I could bring her a few sheets of lyrics (maybe Cosmia, Does Not Suffice, Baby Birch), and tell her that to me, Jo is a poet in a lot of ways. Hopefully on seeing my enthusiasm she'll accept that I can write on the subject. I'm pretty confident she'll at least hear me out.
The issue is, I want to show that I'm taking this seriously so I feel like I should go to her with an idea of what I want to write about, and this is the point where I'm getting a bit stuck. Ideas about how she treats the notions of femininity and motherhood creep into my head but neither are really fully formed as ideas or arguments, and I'm going to have to be really on top of things since there's next to no critical material to work from. I was also considering maybe asking how Joanna transmits affect (emotional response) through her language, but again this seems to be couched in rather vague terms.
So I was basically wondering if any of you had any ideas on a great essay that could be written on Jo? I know my stuff, and I'm pretty good on close reading, plus I'm analysed all of her lyrics so much that I've got some of the work done already. So does anyone know how i can further one of these essay titles or maybe another angle to look at her music that might be interesting, and maybe more unique?
I'd be most interested in looking at: Emily, S&D, Only Skin, Cosmia, Baby Birch, Go Long and Does Not SUffice, because I feel these are all incredibly rich songs to draw from and comment on, but I'd obviously be willing to chance that up if a good question arose.
So basically I desperately want to write on Newsom, but I just need a little help formulating my question. Thanks in advance for any thoughts or ideas you guys have, I hope someone can help.
I am wondering whether there's enough material in a topic such as "Show how Joanna Newsom takes negative notions associated with the concept of Rejection and incorporates them into her work in a positive way". Or "Rejection" could be replaced by "Alienation".
Baby Birch is, to me, the clearest example of this - as I think it's established that the song is about a child that was envisaged (planned) but was never born, or never even conceived (in the biological sense) - ie rejected in some way. Joanna represents this by the barber, the goose and her goslings, and finally the bunny, which she implores to run away and be at peace.
In both Only Skin and Monkey & Bear, there are references to the common folk / village folk, and how they would react to the unseemly goings on (the narrator keeping her man warm / Bear all bedraggled). In M&B especially, this rejection is turned around, because we are meant to side with Bear's newfound freedom, rather than Monkey's urge to control.
Does Not Suffice, Go Long, Flying A Kite, Inflammatory Writ, and Soft As Chalk are all filled with alienation / otherness / rejection, and I know you could tease out dozens of threads to discuss far better than I could.
Anyway - I am probably completely on the wrong track here, so I won't babble on unchecked. I almost want to PM this to you instead of putting it here to be shot down by cleverer people, ... ... but here goes!
the easiest way i can think of going at the topic is "stream of conscious" writing style. she uses a ton of in line rhyme, half rhyme, off rhyme and surprise rhyming as well. i have given this stuff some thought as i have always wanted to do a poetry based interview with her(or at least poetry heavy questions). she makes nice use of alliteration and goes heavy on consonant sounds for the "feeling" in some of her songs. without specific examples this works out as c,k,t etc sounds(among others) being hard and gruff sounding while s,p,h,z etc make soft sounds. when u string a whole line of words with one or the other it can sound easy and light or heavy and gruff...harsh or loving. it can get almost like punctuation at times breaking lines off into sections or highlighting a line or section. while she continues to write some story telling type lyrics the songs that stick out to me come in a rapid heavy flow of lines she has taken real life events and kalidescoped them into "fiction" and u can see her wordsmithing at work with her excellent word choices. back when we were getting stuff that had placeholder lyrics in there u could follow her hand picking the best words for the slot, and she ain't shy about it
The thing i like best about deciphering Joanna's songs...i'm always wrong.
I wrote an essay (albeit at a much lower academic level) on Emily analysing the way she deals with the theme of ephemerality, which I think is there in a lot of her songs. She seems to write a great deal about termination and transition, and missed opportunities - which of course are common subjects, constituting as they do such a great proportion of human experience, but she deals with them thematically; she writes about them in a way that elucidates them, revealing facets of their essence as a Hindu deity reveals an aspect of Brahman. (Gosh, that was a stretch.)
I for one would love to read an essay on the theme of excess—which Joanna's said links Ys and Have One On Me—and how she uses it in her lyrics and for what purposes. In Ys it's about the excess of water, food, flowers, everything overripe to the point of rotting; but in HOOM it's about the kind of excess that diminishes you, especially as a woman.
Wow some great ideas there guys, I think excess is an especially appropriate choice for my module. Keep any ideas coming, I'm so grateful for the comments
So I went to see my tutor today, suggesting that I do an essay on space in the lyrics of Joanna Newsom, with particular reference to Does Not Suffice, In California + Emily (space / home), and Autumn.
I'm going to start reading about Topophilia (emotional relationship with space) and Bachelard's Poetics of Space and hopefully use one of the two to add some weight to my argument.
Then there's all sorts of other thoughts in my head; borders, limits and liminal space as referenced heavily in Emily, and then dream space used in Go Long and Sawdust and Diamonds.
You guys have any thoughts? Sound good? Anything to add?
"Colleen" on land is vastly different than "Colleen" in the ocean. The whole thing, I feel like, explores an emotional disconnect with the space she is in:
I tilled and planted, but could not produce - not root, nor leaf, nor flower, nor bean; Lord! It seemed I overwatered everything.
And I hate the sight of that empty air, like stepping for a missing stair and falling forth forever blindly: cannot grab hold of anything!
and the emotional and physical connection to the space she feels comfortable in, mainly in the last stanza.
I'm not sure if it'll fit into what you ultimately do, but it seems like it fits in with the idea. Also, I reallllly love Colleen.
Monkey & Bear! "...and earn our keep while still within the borders of the land that man has girded"; "the space they gained grew much farther than the stone that Bear threw to mark where they'd stop for tea"; "your feast is to the east, which lies a little past the pasture"... There's quite a bit about space in there, also in Monkey's fear and Bear's fearlessness of the seaside caverns.
Esme: "Kindness prevails! Ties and rails, ties and rails fall into line bearing kindness."
Dream-space and its borders in Kingfisher: "I had a dream that you came to me, said, 'You shall not do me harm any more,' and with your knife you evicted my life from its little lighthouse on the seashore. And I saw that my blood had no bounds, spreading in a circle like an atom bomb, soaking and felling everything in its path and welling in my heart like a bird bath."
Only Skin seems to me to flit back and forth between different realities. There's ambiguous waking/sleeping dreams, catching some small death when you were sleepwalking, another world that moves often according to the hoarding of these clues, etc.; and a negation of limits: "The shallow water stretches as far as I can see", an endless sea that swallows up the land (or at least a portentous manatee island). Water does that a lot in Ys in general (both the island and the album): oversteps its limits and floods everything.
Jackrabbits, very direct: "It can have no bounds, y'know, and it can have no end."
Jackrabbits. It's a great example of a certain spatial disconnect, in the sense that the space being portrayed is too large for the voice alone to fill. The song is thick and heavy with emptiness. It begins with a sense of being untethered, as she "swings", "scrabbles", "stumbles", etc., as if the space is dangerous in giving her nothing to hold onto, the danger enhanced by the image of the dead jackrabbits. Her repeated offering of her hand indicates attempts to fill the space, to inhabit the space comfortably, but the space is unresponsive, and therefore coldly indifferent. There is death in the song that leaves her heart "open wide", i.e., full of space, the ever-present darkness presents space, or "lack", as an impenetrable and oppressive blanket (only penetrable with a hand, or the accepting of a renewal of relationship - the hand, however, is left untaken in the song), there is boundlessness and endlessness and freedom and distance, etc. etc., just a lot of imagery that creates the sense of a rift that reflects the rift between two people.
This, of course, adds a certain layer of tragedy to the song when the voice attempts to fill the void with her love alone - "I can love you again" - an exclamation that attempts to dominate the space with more and more desperation as it is sung louder and pitched higher. All that's left at the end is the abating buzz of her harpstring and the oppressive ly ubiquitous analog crackle.
(sorry I haven't posted here before but I couldn't think of anything to say haha)
Trying to hone down and focus my subject. At the moment I’ve been focussing on ideas of dislocation, home, space, place and emotional relationship to these concepts. So far I’ve tried close readings of Autumn, In California and Does Not Suffice. I thought that given my topics IC would be the most fruitful but I’m finding it’s not the easiest set of lyrics to analyse closely, and have found the other two much more useful so far.
If anyone would care to take the time to further any of my points, respond, dispute, or recommend any other songs for analysis, I’d be ridiculously grateful. My next step is to have a look at ideas of home and borders in Emily, check if any other songs might be useful to my argumentation (but I’ve got to make the essay as focussed as possible) then I’m going to get cracking on the theory to try and ‘serious’ up my arguments.
So here are my thoughts so far:
Autumn
• Season and weather reflect inner space, an autumn of the felicitous space – example of how expression of external space reflects inner emptiness, disappointment, disconnect
• Poetic lineage of the season, Keates etc; striking first evocation of the close of summer, the blood-red sun that often closes the season
• R/ship with time o Uncomfortable association with time, if it doesn’t age her what will? She has been led (by lover) to believe that ‘leaving keeps you young’, thereby associating changing space, rather than time, with aging o Verse itself ‘I may have changed…keeps you young’ reads poetically, it is metrically balanced unlike the rest of the song – with clear metre you are in fact marking out time o Ultimately though, time is a space (dimensions) o At the end ‘time marches along’ – is this a reconciliation of sorts?
• ‘you’d hardly guess I was my own mother’s daughter’ – dislocation from the family space, social space, physical space, the space she occupied in her relationship before, she has irrevocably severed her affective ties with the land and her r/ships
• ‘I ain’t naturally given to roam’ – he has infringed upon her inner space and changed her, re understanding of aging, and here taking her uncharacteristically away from her home – will this be a return?
• Image of the gurney – incongruous image, as dislocated as she herself is. A mechanical image in a song that describes landscape, showing how she doesn’t fit. Connotations of illness and powerlessness, lack of agency (one is pushed on a gurney)
• Verse ‘here, where the loon…dove-grey days’ o the two are spatially separate but (she imagines) they share the same experience, occupying the same emotional space within different places o Dexis – ‘here’, ‘there’ – gives a physically spatial quality to the line, brings the listener into her space o ‘violent love’ – virtual anagram, echo binds the two words which express opposition
• Final verse o ‘snowbound by thoughts of him whom I would shun’ – conflict, her tie is to him and not to the land, hence the dislocation, so she attempts to force a reconciliation with her hometown o lack of movement ‘cannot gain ground / cannot outrun’
• Troublesome concept of ‘home’ and ‘hometown’ in the song o At the beginning it is all autumn and ghosts, no other living person o Even gossiping depersonalised to lawns, her hometown is so devoid of warm feeling and human association o ‘alone, here in my home’ – makes one question what a home is to her; since her affective ties have been severed here it appears to only mean the place where she’s from – conflict (does she call it home because she has nowhere left to go?) o final lines ‘I will be in my hometown’ – do we believe this is the right thing? What is her home? Throughout the song she creates distinctions in the space (‘here’, ‘there’, ‘among’, ‘along’) which makes the final repetition uneasy, as if she has given up – a struggle between space and feelings of belonging o she attempts to assert her identity through space (as one does, e.g. ‘I’m from London’) but the topography of her self is uncertain, the place inside her is full of borders and frontiers (cf Emily) so a hometown is an uncomfortable fit o use of words ‘home’ and ‘hometown’ – always calls it a hometown except once, when she qualifies it with the word ‘alone’ – unlike a home, a hometown is a compound word, the I is blurred into it, is she trying to assert her place in this hometown with the final repetition?
• She is the only thing moving in the whole song, there are only ghosts and the waxwing that freezes instantly against her lovetorn heart o So she is stuck, she can move physically but not emotionally – so unsatisfactorily she decides to stay put
In California
• Song about her love for her home and all that has grown there; the land and nature, her relationship with the lover, and her own identity
• California as felicitous space
• Describing the self with natural imagery o Verse ‘well, I have sown…someone else’s flowers’ – portraying her inner self as a farm (natural image, showing her inner self painted in the colours of the land of her past), reflecting an invasion of her inner space and a dislocation from her home o ‘oil drum’ and ‘ear of corn’ – self described once more with images of a farm, but again negative – if the natural space she misses is only applied to herself negatively, maybe it’s no longer right for her
• The deer (not sure about this point) – ominous symbols of one space encroaching upon another
• Verse ‘I don’t belong to anyone…with fool commands’ o ‘I don’t belong to anyone’ – trying to exert an autonomy but it is immediately undercut with ‘I don’t want to be alone – split selves (across external and internal spaces) and confusion. To make that assertion she must be rebelling against something, so what did she feel she belonged to? The land? The lover? Her past self?
• ‘shaking in my doorway like a sentinel, all alone, bracing like the bow upon a ship’ o doorway is a liminal space between two places; between past/present, between home and present space o trapped – a doorway is an exit, and a ship (bow) moves, but she is constrained and confined by inner conflict
• ‘if I lose my head / just where am I going to lay it’ – a forced pragmatism, an acknowledgement that it is necessary to find a new space and not hover indecisively and anxiously between two
• final verse o excess of nature cf Emily o acceptance that this space no longer fits her – ‘choked her roots’, but ‘on the earth’ – this doesn’t make sense; a severing of herself from the natural laws of the land and thus the part of her inner self that she sees as natural o abandoning the natural space within her to forge out a new space, even though her new position is hard, an ultimate acceptance that she cannot move backwards and has to persevere
Does Not Suffice
• A metrical ballad, I can write it out in ballad form o ‘how easy I was not’ – stress on line forces emphasis even when reading to fit metrical rhythm
• In California refrain (is there a point here?)
• After an album’s worth of dependence – on drink, clothes, men, she finally removes herself and acts with autonomy
• Packing up all the items that have been used against her throughout HOOM, (boldly feminine) symbols of the self; physical / spatial representation of her packing herself away o List, itemising as a ritual of departure; trying to prepare her mental space for change as she does the physical space
• For the first time a domestic space, not the land or the country; a single room that two people have shared, and the metaphorical room that they occupied together in their relationship
• Verse ‘I picture you…yourself red’ – she is leaving the space to him, and she is left only with an image of what it is like now; the space is reclaimed by him o ‘boundless’, ‘scouring yourself red’; his dubious freedom (which sounds more than a little like emptiness) is reflected in his interaction, in her mind, of the space
• final verse o space used to refer to her complete emotional removal – ‘empty’, ‘unburdened’, ‘swaying’ o The space is pregnant with her absence, she forcibly severs her topophilia from the room they shared o Question of possession of space – as she finally abandons the shared space of their relationship with a melancholy reflection on the effort that she made
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A couple of questions i was pondering, also
There are a lot of specific references to east and west in HOOM, which I'm unsure how to read.
Also in In California, where is she now? Are both spaces in California? Or is it referring to her home?
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Thanks so much for reading, I'm super terrified about writing this essay so any input would be amazing
All those analysis are very accurate and very interessting, for the first part of the essay i think you should do exactly what your doing now, to brainstorm as much as you can. For the next part, you have to be able to discern what the problematic of the essay will be, as from there you can start to write your essay's skeleton, that if you are studying in a french university should be in three parts (they love that shit)
i think one of the most interessting things about joanna is that even though our society is almost totally technological, she still manages to embrace what is most natural and most inner to the human being, and that is something that the modern poet now a days doen't really do anymore, in other words, one problematic could be in in what way is the Joanna preception of human relationships, are translated in her poetical work, and from there i think you have a wide opening to be able to approach almost all subjects that you mencioned, also i think the topophilia is very important, and it would be quite fruitful to explore.
Anyway, I hope I was helpful, and keeps us posted inc ase you have anymore questions
Really great ideas man, thanks. I studied at the Sorbonne last year so I'm familiar with French essay style
I'm trying to just go through the songs and work out which ones are most useful for my essay; so far Autumn and Does Not Suffice are the frontrunners, and the concepts of inner space, home, and dislocation seem the best to focus on. I'm going to read through Emily today as I believe it will be helpful.
Anyone think of any other tracks that would stand up to close reading on these themes?
Then I'm going to get going with Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space to insert some serious theory into the mix.
Erin ... seems to evoke geographical space potently to me. To a non-American, "across the wide Missouri" just oozes space: lots of open sounds as well, both musically and lyrically.
I think the two I've mentioned previously are still really rich examples here, but with specific regard to home and dislocation, I think Ann's suggestion of Colleen is pretty grand (although, is it you, Tom, who dislikes Colleen? I forget). To be honest though I really feel like In California is still probably the most relevant song here, and I think what you've written about it is pretty great.
I went on to look at Jackrabbits and although what you wrote makes a lot of sense, it doesn't quite fit into my essay I think. I will, however, be doing a close reading of the first verse of '81 I think.
this is my current idea of a structure: Begin with a close reading of Autumn, making points about how Jo interacts with concepts of space, landscape, dislocation etc.
Then take 3/4 main stylistics tendencies or aspects in the writing of Autumn and expand upon them by using another song.
eg
use of antithetical locations (here/ there, inside / outside, east / west, home / not home, rural / not rural) dissonant imagery in nature (gurney, gondoliers, hydrocephalitic etc) the self as landscape, spatial physicalisation of the inner self
using close readings of certain passages of emily, 81, does not suffice;
haven't really looked into colleen yet apart from from a feminist slant, i'll give it another look.
this is all coming along nicely, except the theory books i'm reading are pretty terrifying. anyway i'll keep y'all updated
Can anyone help me with a question I'm trying to work out about In California? I'm unsure where the new space she has moved to is. The past is clearly rural, but has she moved to a city? Are both places in California or just where she is in the present?